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Butterscotch Horseman
Butterscotch Horseman is the deceased, neglectful, and verbally abusive father of BoJack Horseman, the biological father of Hollyhock Manheim-Mannheim-Guerrero-Robinson-Zilberschlag-Hsung-Fonzerelli-McQuack, and the husband of Beatrice Horseman. He is a recurring character (through flashbacks) throughout Seasons 1 and 4. Appearance Butterscotch was a draft horse with grey fur, a black mane, a straight white streak covering the entire top of his snout, and a pink spot on his nose. According to model sheets he was about the same height as BoJack. In flashbacks to BoJack’s childhood, he is seen wearing suits with a white collared shirt and a white and dark grey striped tie. In one flashback in “BoJack Hates the Troops” he wore a red and navy blue smoking jacket over his white shirt. When working at the fish cannery he wore a light blue collared shirt, a black apron, grey pants, brown shoes, a red beanie, and yellow gloves. He had bags under his eyes. From the late 1990s until his death, he has a thinner mane with grey streaks in it, and he has larger wrinkles under his eyes along with dark circles. He is wearing a navy blue suit with the jacket opened, a white shirt, and brown shoes. He is also seen as a young adult with longer bangs in his mane and wearing a light blue and green plaid shirt, a brown jacket, brown braided belt, blue jeans, and brown shoes. Background Butterscotch Horseman hailed from a working-class background, and is presented as a aspiring novelist whom admired the beatniks. He is shown to be impulsive, smart, bold, and charismatic, at least to a young Beatrice Sugarman, who is pressured to be in a relationship with Corbin Creamerman due to being the heir of a creamery. The two met in June 1963, when Butterscotch crashes Beatrice's debutante party. Butterscotch tells her about his book idea which Beatrice makes fun of and Butterscotch nails her dissatisfaction with high-society life. He also compares her to his mother, who died when he was little, saying she had a diamond on her head just like hers, he saw it in a picture once. The entrance of Butterscotch in Beatrice's life is refreshing to her-he provides an escape from stuffy high-society life she didn't know was possible. He bates her with a dare she can't resist-"But I suppose daddy wouldn't like that would he?" This gives her an excuse to rebel. Beatrice enticed, and seduced by the gatecrashing Butterscotch leaves the party, thrown by her father, "for" her, and the two engage in a one night stand. Beatrice believes it was simply a fling till she ends up pregnant with BoJack. After two weeks has passed, a pregnant Beatrice arrives to a set of apartments to confront Butterscotch, and reveals her pregnancy to him. He asks if she could get an abortion, but she cannot (due to childhood trauma of her baby doll being burned as a child due to her catching scarlet fever). After a short discussion and move to San Francisco to start their family, and for Butterscotch to write his novel. Butterscotch, however, had not yet started his novel by the time BoJack was born, and he was working at a fish cannery despite being offered a job by Beatrice's father, Joseph Sugarman, for his company. He also turned against the beatniks he once admired due to his writings being rejected. He resented Beatrice's family's wealth, his inability to provide for her, and the fact she wanted to keep the baby (telling her "You wanted that baby. Never forget that"). Beatrice resented Butterscotch for not accepting her father's job offer, making little money at the job he had, and his treatment of her. This caused their marriage to become highly dysfunctional, loveless, and joyless. Beatrice and Butterscotch were two people who came together not out of love, though they did go through a short-lived honeymoon phase, but together out of spite for the world around them. The two gradually began to despise each other more and more, which affected how they treated BoJack during his formative years. They also became alcoholics and heavy smokers. When BoJack was six, Butterscotch finally agreed to work for Beatrice's father Joseph Sugarman , and they became wealthier-but not happier. Butterscotch and his wife first appear in flashbacks in "BoJack Hates the Troops". Beatrice makes Butterscotch an omelette and implies that he is having an affair with his secretary. Butterscotch himself implies that the only reason he married Beatrice was because she got pregnant and wouldn't get an abortion. Later, another flashback shows young BoJack giving Butterscotch (who is working on a ship in a bottle while smoking) a Father's Day card. Butterscotch originally thinks it's a Lima Bean and then berates his son's work on the card as "some shoddy craftsmanship". BoJack says he did his best, Butterscotch says he didn't and he slacked off and took the easy way out, before ranting about the "hard way" versus the "easy way", describing going around The Horn as "gentlemanly" and implying only democrats use the Panama Canal, after which he slaps after his son for replying canal to his question. It is revealed that Butterscotch used to make BoJack cry with him while listening to Cole Porter records, and at one point, Butterscotch made him build his own tree-house, when BoJack was away at summer camp he tore it down, because instead of using nails, he used screws. He also used to tell his son to "bang his head against the wall" to get rid of his son's "stupidity". In flashbacks, Butterscotch is often seen yelling nonsensical ultra-conservative hyperbole, usually to cover up his failures, and "easy comings" in the world (such as Canals, and Imaginary Friends), typically blaming it on Democrats, Jews, or Communists. It is revealed that Butterscotch and Beatrice would commonly fight with each other, due to blaming each other for their failures, Butterscotch's adultery, and alcoholism. Typically these fights would become volatile enough, that plates, and other objects would start being destroyed. In 1999, he cheated on Beatrice with their maid Henrietta Platchkey (and also flirted with her by telling her his dead mother had hair like hers, he saw it in a picture once). He gets her pregnant with a baby girl horse, and begs Beatrice to fix the situation for him, to the point where he breaks down crying over it. Beatrice was upset, and, not wanting Henrietta to make the same mistakes she did, forced Henrietta to give the child up for adoption and they would cover her Nursing school tuitions. It is shown in a flashback Henrietta did not want to actually give the infant up for adoption and screams and sobs when the tiny foal is snatched away from her. The baby was eventually adopted by eight gay men and named Hollyhock. In late 2017, Hollyhock looked for her father, who she believed to be BoJack, because everyone always told her she looked like him. A DNA test with hair samples reveals they are related. They looked for her mom, but none of the people BoJack slept with in 1999 had gotten pregnant, except one, who had a abortion. They eventually find out Butterscotch is her dad from an envelope Beatrice had in a box, meaning she and BoJack are half-siblings. Hollyhock also finds out who her mom is and flies to Minneapolis to meet Henrietta. It is eventually revealed that Butterscotch had passed away sometime after The Bojack Horseman Show premiered. Personality From what has been shown from Butterscotch Horseman in his initial appearances, he is an alcoholic, run down mess who commonly abuses his son many times as a "punishment" for ruining his life, presumably because he might not have been ready to father a child and his failure as a writer. He is shown to be resentful and bitter towards his wife for her financial independence, and the fact she refused to get an abortion, but particularly due to their marriage, and having to look after a son he wanted little to do with, he likewise wants nothing to do with Hollyhock his other child. It is also implied Butterscotch was also sometimes physically abusive to Beatrice, as in a flashback in "Thoughts and Prayers" shows Beatrice telling BoJack, who joined the football team, that if he wants to get knocked around for an afternoon he should read his father's manuscript and call his prose pedestrian and derivative, because it works for her everytime. Shown in Time's Arrow, Butterscotch in '''1963', is shown to initially be a somewhat suave, sarcastic, witty, somewhat impulsive and somewhat charismatic aspiring writer, who wishes to move to San Francisco to make Novels, and has a vocal disdain for business owners, who he believes subjects their workers to "slavery". During the late 1990's, Butterscotch is shown to have become egotistically weaker, and to an extent emotionally broken, but still maintains an adulterous life, seducing a maid, Henrietta Platchkey, who was in nursing school, whom he is attracted to her due to her similar appearance to his deceased mother. She then ends up pregnant with Hollyhock who is later adopted by eight gay men in a polyamorous relationship. It is suggested that Butterscotch is easily attracted to woman, and that he has committed adultery with a secretary he wanted to marry, a maid, and various other "fillies" as described by Beatrice. He apparently also compares women he's attracted to to his dead mother, telling them they have similar features to her, he saw it in a picture once. Quotes *''"That's some shoddy craftsmanship son". *"No you didn't! You slacked off and took the easy way out! In this world you can either do things the easy way or the right way. You take a boat from here to New York. You gonna go round the horn like a gentleman, or cut through the Panama Canal like some kinda Democrat?"'' *''"You go around the horn the way God intended'"'' *''"Imaginary friends are freeloaders invented by Communists to rip off welfare. Why don't you do something productive like bang your head against the wall until your brain isn't so stupid?"'' *''"Well now I'm EXIT-taining. DO YOU GET IT?!" Appearances Season 1 *BoJack Hates the Troops *Live Fast, Diane Nguyen *Downer Ending Season 2 *Brand New Couch (silhouette only) Season 4 * The Old Sugarman Place (Photographed) *Thoughts and Prayers (mentioned) *Time's Arrow *What Time Is It Right Now (Mentioned) Trivia *Will Arnett voices both Butterscotch and BoJack Horseman; at times, Butterscotch's voice is almost identical to BoJack's voice. *He and Beatrice do not appear at all in '''Season' 3 *His mother died when he was a child. Butterscotch describes her as having a white diamond mark on her head like Beatrice when he first meets her, and when he meets Henrietta he tells her she had brown hair just like hers. His biological daughter, Hollyhock also has a diamond on her head, which suggests that Butterscotch did not lie to Beatrice. *Butterscotch did eventually finish his novel, which was titled "The Horse Who Couldn’t Be Broken”. It is presumed that the book was either unsuccessful or published posthumously. *Little is known of his family history, with the exception of his mother dying, as of 'Season 4. ' Image Gallery Butterscotch_Horseman_001.jpg|"...his working class father, Butterscotch Horseman, who struggled, and often failed, to provide those comforts..." Butterscotch Horseman model sheet.jpeg|Butterscotch Horseman model sheet. Horseman Family portrait.png|Butterscotch with his wife ,Beatrice, and son, BoJack Category:Characters Category:Males Category:Horses Category:Recurring characters Category:Animals Category:Minor characters Category:Deceased